Places To Shoot
Egypt...
A Middle Eastern country in northeast Africa, Egypt is at the centre of the Arab world. Egypt controls the Suez Canal, the shortest sea link between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. The country is defined by desert and the Nile, the longest river on Earth. The Nile flows north out of central Africa, cascading over the cataracts (waterfalls) through Upper (southern) Egypt and Lower (northern) Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea—with a mountainous desert to the east, a rolling drier desert to the west, and the vast Sahara to the south.
Ancient civilizations arose along the narrow floodplain of the Nile, protected by the deserts that were natural barriers to invaders. Egyptians take pride in their rich heritage and in their descent from what is considered the first great civilization. Some 4,500 years ago Old Kingdom Egypt possessed enough peace and wealth to cultivate a culture devoted to the afterlife. Some 20,000 to 30,000 citizens mobilized to construct the Great Pyramid at Giza for the pharaoh Khufu; at 147 meters (481 feet) high it was the tallest monument in the world for thousands of years—until the 19th century.
Egypt is Africa's second most populous country after Nigeria, and it has the highest population in the Arab world. About 95 percent of Egyptians live along the Nile—on less than 5 percent of Egypt's territory. The Nile Valley is one of the world's most densely populated areas, containing an average of 1,540 persons per square kilometre (3,820 per square mile). Most Egyptians are Muslim Arabs, but there is a sizeable Coptic Christian population of seven million.
Old
Cairo or Al-Fustat الفسطاط was founded in AD 648 near other Egyptian
cities and villages, including the old Egyptian capital Memphis,
Heliopolis, Giza and the Byzantine fortress of Babylon-in-Egypt.
However, Fustat was itself a new city built as a military garrison for
Arab troops and was the closest central location to Arabia that was
accessible to the Nile. Fustat became a regional center of Islam during
the Umayyad period and was where the Umayyad ruler, Marwan II, made his
last stand against the Abbasids. Later, during the Fatimid era, Al-Qahira
(Cairo) was officially founded in AD 969 as an imperial capital and it
absorbed Fustat. During its history various dynasties would add suburbs
to the city and construct important structures that became known
throughout the Islamic world including the Al-Azhar mosque. Conquered by
Saladin and ruled by Ayyubids starting in 1171, it remained an important
center of the Muslim world. Slave soldiers or Mamluks seized Egypt and
ruled from their capital at Cairo from 1250 to 1517 when they were
defeated by the Ottomans. Following Napoleon's brief occupation, an
Ottoman officer named Muhammad Ali made Cairo the capital of an
independent empire that lasted from 1801 to 1882. The city came under
British control until Egypt attained independence in 1922.
Photo and story By Liliana Bettencourt
Egypt - Luxor - Karnak 2...
The Second Pylon of Karnak was built by Ramesses
II. The Ptolemies did some extensive repairing and some new building on
the center section. Curiously enough, they left the columns and the
facade of the First Pylon unfinished and left the mud-brick ramp where
it was at. The reason for the work left unfinished is not clear.
By Liliana Bettencourt
